Communication

As a preparation/temptation for tomorrow I'll post a complete dictation from JK. Whenever he throws pen & paper at me my heart drops, or rather fear rises, because I know it means I'm going to be in the grip of his best energy for the next hour or so, something that has driven the faint-hearted to tears or even to flee for the hills, never to be seen again. I like this one (he doesn't - does any creative person have any time for what they did yesterday?). It reads as a series of aphorisms straight from the teaching.

Language is probably the most popular tool for communication.
Man has been using it for a long time.
Why then are there so many misunderstandings, breakdowns and disasters in our relationships with others?
We have developed the kind of knowledge that can put men on the moon, so why do we not feed the starving and heal the sick when we so clearly have the means to do so?
What is written large in society is only a reflection of the small in the ordinary relationships we experience.
The answer is, of course, that communication is man's most difficult problem, and the basic principles are not generally known.

Communication took place before words were invented.
Confusion arises when it is assumed that communication begins with words.
The foundation for any episode or cycle of communication takes place out of time, before words can possibly interfere.
Then we come up against the problem of definition, since each word means something slightly different to each person according to character, talent, conditioning and mood.
To be open to all this - the huge far-searching humanity of the other person - requires humility which itself requires the laying aside of self-indulgence.
This means basically that you have to lay aside fear in order to listen.
To at least know this is a start.
But without this we are bound to repeat our own history endlessly which is no way forwards in the process of deepening our understanding by learning life's lessons.
The chief quality of listening to the energy behind words or other modes of expression, is softness.
Hardness implies barriers of self-satisfaction, often at our success at bearing off fear in some situation or other.
This kind of pride often encourages abuse.
The activity of our thinking mind as it comes to our consciousness often works against listening.
Softness implies lack of motives, lack of meanness.
The meaning of what is being communicated must attract and stick, and also be allowed to stick.
The understanding comes from the seeping of each into the other.
Good intentions and good nature are no substitute for correct method.
Filling the other person and being allowed one's own filling, is what is required.
Without this nothing is ever perfectly communicated.
It is as if a thirsty person is never given enough to drink, so that he always remains thirsty - pretty soon thirst dominates his existence.
So it is with lack of softness, lack of appropriate or sufficient giving.
Needs become paramount, and dominate the dialogue between the various aspects of our own energy and other energies, so that our general awareness is lessened with a parallel lessening of our capacity to communicate.

The word most appropriate, in this context, is love.
The umbilical to our mother is our first channel of communication.
The exchanges after birth may be less palpable, but are they less important?
If they go totally wrong could we not die?
What could be more important than that?
But when communication is blocked, when love is blocked or reduced, then a small death - a lessening of life - occurs.
In the large, life is communication.
It is said "God is Love" meaning the creator is love, so how can the created be less than love, indeed how can the created be less than the creator.
When it is said that all is communication, it is another way of saying that all is love.
Listening is the gift you give, is the gift you take.
To embrace listening completely requires a process that is neither give nor take but steady with the energy of the natural process.
It is when the self invades that we have motive, we have gain and loss.
Consequently, it is the ridding of self that is the process of love.
It is significant that a man and woman together can create new life.
But so can any two people, or two entities.
This new life may not necessarily take a perfect shape, but it is just as tender and full of potential as a new-born baby.
The reverence we can feel at such a birth is a special commitment to the natural process we call life.

Where the heart moves, we should follow, and not the other way round.
This way the world of success and failure may be left behind.
This does not mean immediate or huge success will follow our efforts.
Each thing that seems to go wrong is an inspiration to renew our faith in the natural process.
These little failures can then feed the work of reducing rather than increasing, until the self is removed more and more so we can listen more and more, be more and more at one with our partner in communication, one with the natural process itself.
The word love says it all to those who can hear - that all is love.



John Kells London 13v01